Venice, a museum city seemingly dominated by tourists, does not seem to offer good living conditions to its permanent inhabitants. In fact, tourism is just a ‘cover-up’ for the city’s everyday life, whereas its layout, the scale of its public spaces and consistent functional decisions are regarded as model solutions, easily adaptable to different conditions. The questions of the universality of the features of Venetian housing environment – which make interpersonal contacts easier, support the raising of children and strengthen the feeling of identification with the neighbourhood and the city – were beautifully summed up by Lewis Mumford in his fundamental work The City in History: “the homework assigned by Venice has not been done yet”.

Venice, a museum city seemingly dominated by tourists, does not seem to offer good living conditions to its permanent inhabitants. In fact, tourism is just a ‘cover-up’ for the city’s everyday life, whereas its layout, the scale of its public spaces and consistent functional decisions are regarded as model solutions, easily adaptable to different conditions. The questions of the universality of the features of Venetian housing environment – which make interpersonal contacts easier, support the raising of children and strengthen the feeling of identification with the neighbourhood and the city – were beautifully summed up by Lewis Mumford in his fundamental work The City in History: “the homework assigned by Venice has not been done yet”.